Fasting and the Fifty Percent Insulin Problem

Only HALF the insulin your body makes each day is made because of the food you eat.

What about the other 50%?

You’ve changed the food, but you’re not seeing the results you hoped for. If that’s you, then let me tell you about The Fifty Percent Insulin Problem and what you can do about it.

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I want to talk to you about how HALF the insulin your body makes, and yes I said HALF the insulin, fifty percent of the daily insulin your body produces has nothing to do with the food you eat.

I call this The Fifty Percent Insulin Problem.
Everyone in the low carb community understands if you eat a high carb meal, or a snack cake, or even worse, one of those big belly washing soft drinks, your insulin will go WAY UP fast.

The message seems so simple.

Carbs drive insulin and insulin drives obesity.

Cut the carbs, reduce the insulin and lose the weight.

Such a simple message, but is that the whole story?

The idea that carbs increase insulin is true, and for some simply cutting the carbs they eat is enough to solve their problem.
But for others, maybe even for you, this might not be enough, because HALF your insulin problem is not an eating problem.
So changing what you eat alone, might not be enough to reverse it.

You might need to an add another strategy.
In this article, I want you to see a side of this insulin problem that isn’t very well known.

I call this the Fifty Percent Insulin Problem

I want to very quickly, show you a study that will explain what this problem is.

In this study they looked at insulin levels throughout the day in a group of people, half the people were fat, the other half thin.
They tested these people’s insulin after 10 hours of sleeping and not eating and came up with the lowest level of constant insulin these people always have in their system, they called this the “Basal insulin secretion rate”, but we’ll call it their “Fasting Insulin” because whenever you see this number in a study, they call it the “fasting insulin”.

In other words, this fasting insulin number is a marker that tells us the minimum constant level of insulin that’s always circulating in your blood regardless of whether you’re eating or not.

You see, your body releases a certain amount of insulin all day long, it happens while you’re eating and even when you’re not eating, even when you’re sleeping, and how high or how low this constant minimum level of insulin is, can best be tested after an overnight fast.

This fasting insulin level could be thought of as the floor or the lowest constant level of insulin, while your level after eating could be thought of as jumping up to the ceiling, or the highest temporary level.

We all know our insulin jumps up to the ceiling a few times a day but these high levels are temporary and they depend on what we’ve been eating.

On the other hand, the fasting level of insulin is constantly present, like the floor, it is the ground you stand on all the time.
And this constant background level of insulin, this floor you stand on, this fasting insulin, tends to be much higher for fat people than for thin people.

Now here’s the reason I’m telling you about this stuff. They tested the day’s total insulin to see what percentage of it happened after eating and what percentage of it was this constant background amount.

And do you know what they found?

They found that this constant background level of insulin, this floor that your insulin never goes below, represented between 45 to 50% of the TOTAL insulin you produce each day.

About HALF of the insulin you produce each day is this constant background pool of insulin you always have circulating, regardless of whether you’re eating or not.

Fifty Percent of the insulin released each day is released as a constant background level, regardless of how fat or how thin you are.

This Fifty Percent Insulin Problem is happening all through the day and this is not dependent on what you’re eating.

The skinny people had a lower constant background level, they had a lower floor, on average, but this was still about HALF of the insulin they produced each day.

The fat people had a higher constant background level, on average, but this was still about HALF of the insulin they produced each day.

This is the fifty percent insulin problem.

And if HALF of your daily insulin is higher than it should be, and it probably is, if you’re fat around the middle, then HALF the problem you have with insulin is not caused by what you eat alone. For more about this, see my video “Butter Makes Your Pants Fall Off“.

And if HALF the insulin you produce is not caused by the food you eat, then simply changing your food alone may not be enough to fix this problem. And I think that many people who have not been successful losing weight with a low carb diet alone, have found this out the hard way.

If this 50% insulin problem is not related to food, what is it related to?
The answer is – It is directly associated with how fat you are.

As you can see from these graphs from several other studies, the fatter you are, the higher your fasting insulin level.

The higher your fasting insulin level, the more background insulin you have all day long.

And the sad news is this, some people have higher insulin even when they are NOT EATING, than normal people have AFTER they eat.

Just look at this graph from the work of Dr. Joseph Kraft.

These people have a fasting insulin rate that is HIGHER (look at the red line above) than normal people have, EVEN AFTER they eat.

Is it any wonder why some people find losing weight almost impossible even on a low carb diet?

Especially if they try to solve their 50% insulin problem by changing what they eat alone, but not changing when they eat, and we’ll talk about that more in a couple minutes. As you’ll see before the end of this video, changing when you eat is MORE effective at attacking this 50% insulin problem, than changing what you eat alone.

This Fifty Percent Insulin Problem happens all the time, but as we’re about to see, the higher that background insulin is, the higher your insulin goes after eating. So even though the Fifty Percent Insulin Problem is not about food, it does effect how high your insulin spikes after you eat.

As you’ll see, in this study published many years before the one we just talked about, they found your insulin levels after you eat are likely to rise 5 to 7 times higher, by one hour after eating, than whatever your fasting insulin level was.

If you’re diabetic or prediabetic the spike is likely to come two hours after eating.

They found whatever your fasting insulin number is, after you eat, your body will release an amount of insulin an average of 5 to 7 times higher than whatever that level of constant background insulin is.

Remember these are averages, for some the spike could be much higher or a little lower. But the important thing to remember is this – the spike in insulin after you eat is based on how high or how low your fasting insulin levels are.

To make this a little more clear, let’s look at an example with some real numbers.

If a person has a fasting insulin level of say 8 microunits.
After that person eats, their insulin will spike an average of 5 to 7 times higher.

Their AFTER eating insulin will rise to an average level of between 45 to 56 microunits, which is within the normal range. They ate a meal, but because their fasting insulin number was fairly low, their after eating numbers stayed in the fairly normal range.

But lets say a person had a high fasting insulin level of 30 microunits. First, that person is likely to be fat if they have a number that high, and so, after that fat person with a fasting number of 30 eats the SAME meal the skinny person ate, their insulin would rise to 150 to 210 microunits, which is 5 to 7 times higher than that fat person’s fasting insulin number, but more than that, it is is 3 times higher than the skinny persons, who just ate the exact same food.

Both people ate the same meal, but the higher the constant background insulin, or what we’re calling the Fifty Percent Insulin Problem, the higher their insulin spiked after eating.

Both of these people had a spike after eating, which is normal, but because the 50% insulin problem was much higher in the fat person, their insulin jumped to a level three times higher than the thin person’s who ate the same food that they did.

By the way, I found this to be true for myself when I took an insulin/glucose tolerance test in October of 2015 ( see this post for more about my insulin/glucose test ) Since being normal weight, I have a fasting insulin level of about 3 microunits and after taking a glucose test my insulin level rose to 18 which is about a 6 fold increase. Then by the third hour I was back down to the 3 microunits of my fasting insulin level.

Let’s sum up what we know:
Some foods like carbs and lean processed protein, like whey protein powders, cause your insulin to go very high after eating, but this insulin only amounts to 50% of your insulin problem. What you eat determines this number, so when you eat low carb, you keep this number lower.

The other 50% of your daily insulin is associated with how fat you are.

It is an insulin problem and the best way to solve it is to periodically hold insulin very very low, as low as possible and this low insulin will allow us to begin burning up that extra body fat around your belly, your butt and your chinny, chin chins.

The association between how fat you are and how high your constant background insulin levels are, could be pictured as an internal fat thermostat which has been called the “body set weight”.

In other words, the higher the fasting insulin level, that constant background insulin that we’ve been talking about, then however high or low that rate is, will determine how high your insulin spikes after eating.

All these things are like a thermostat, a thermostat that sets how much fat the body holds onto.

The more insulin, the higher the body “sets” your fat weight thermostat.

If insulin levels cause the body to set the amount of fat you carry to a certain level, then the question becomes, could you turn down that thermostat by lowering and keeping low your constant background insulin levels?
I think the obvious answer is YES.

And if you want to turn down this thermostat, you need use the most effective strategy you can find to get insulin down as low as possible and hold it there as often as possible.

And when I say as often as possible, I’m talking about adding an element of TIMING to the Low Carb idea.

The Low Carb idea is about what to eat and what not to eat to keep insulin low, but what I’m talking about is not about what to eat, it is about the TIMING of eating.

Not eating for a period of time, even a short period like 16 to 24 hours, is very effective at lowering insulin.

A short fast actually lowers insulin BETTER than Low Carb and it’s cheap, it’s simple and best of all, not eating for short periods of time is NATURE’S way to balance the books.

Low Carb High Fat is great because in many ways, it imitates fasting, and Low Carb is very effective at lowering insulin.
But fasting is the real deal, because any eating raises insulin, no matter what you eat.

Low Carb foods are great at keeping the after eating insulin spike lower, but a short 16 to 24 hour fast is fifty percent more effective than even Low Carb at lowering insulin. And the most sustainable strategy you can take is – combining them into a two front attack on your problem, low carb high fat eating, combined with and followed by, fasting for short 16 to 24 hours periods is powerful.

So what does fasting do?
Fasting 24 hours every other day has been shown to increase how sensitive your body is to insulin.
Being more sensitive to something is easily understood by thinking of how alcohol effects you, if you aren’t used to drinking. Just one or two drinks and you’ll really feel it. The same for insulin, if you become more sensitive, then a little insulin will do the job it takes a lot to do now.

If your body is more sensitive, then you need less insulin to get the same job done.

In the short time of just 22 days of fasting every other day, people became SEVEN times more sensitive to insulin.
Seven times more sensitive.

Just fasting every other day for about 3 weeks, makes you seven times more sensitive to insulin, folks this is amazing stuff.

And it get’s better, on the every other fasting day, their fasting insulin was 57% lower.

That’s a lowering of the background insulin and a lowering of the 50% insulin problem every other day by over HALF, by almost 60%.

And this not eating every other day, increased the body’s fat burning by 58%.

That 58% increase in fat burning is freaking amazing.
That’s your belly being burned up at a rate almost 60% higher.

And I want to point something out about this study that these graphs come from – the people in this study who were fasting every other day, were NOT EATING LOW CARB on their eating days. They were eating whatever the heck they wanted, so you can just imagine how much lower their insulin would have been if they had eaten a low carb diet on their eating day.

Just image how much faster their results would have been, if they had held their insulin lower even on their eating days.

In another study, not eating carbohydrates at all for three days lowered insulin 48%.
But not eating anything for three days, or fasting, lowered insulin by a whopping 69%.

As you can see, Low carb is great, but fasting is almost 50% better than low carb at lowering your insulin.
And this one – two punch of eating LCHF during eating times and then short 16 to 24 hour fasts is the strategy I used and the one I recommend to you.

No other strategy is more effective. And it is more sustainable. This is something you can do long-term folks.

As we’ve seen, not eating for three days lowered insulin almost 70%, but fasting that long might be too hard for some people to do,
but the good news is, two-thirds of that 70% reduction in insulin over a three day fast, is achieved in the first 24 hours. In other words, if three days of fasting makes your insulin go down 70%, the good news is, during the first day of that fast, 70% of all the insulin reduction is already happened.

So even a 24 hour fast reduces insulin almost as much as a 3 day fast could do and a short 24 hour fast from dinner time today until dinner time tomorrow is really easy to do and much more sustainable long term than a long 3 day fast.
Just look what happens during a short fast.

After just 11 hours, fatty acids, this is your fat being released folks, fatty acids being released are GREATLY increased. Just look at that steep rise around 11 hours. That’s your big belly slowly but surely being burned up with a little fasting time each day.

After just 13 hours, ketones are greatly increased. As you know, ketones are made from your body fat and used by the body as a substitute energy source.

Everybody in the low carb world worries about whether or not they are in ketosis, but as you can see, after 13 hours ketones are greatly increasing. You are making ketones while fasting.

And these ketones can continue to rise higher and higher for days so long as the fast continues. Longer fasts have a higher rate of ketones, but you don’t have to do long fasts, simply do a good 16 to 24 hour fast and know the ketones are on a steep rise after 13 hours.

And Insulin falls a lot by 3 to 4 hours after eating and then falls even further by 10 hours after eating.

Remember, 70% of the fall in insulin during a long fast, a three day fast, happens during the first 24 hours.

So most the insulin reduction that happens in a long fast, happens during your short fast.

So eat a LCHF diet during eating times and use the complete appetite control that diet gives you to not eat when not hungry, this not eating when not hungry is fasting.

It’s easy to do, you’re already doing it now when you sleep, all you need to do is extend the time. Delaying eating breakfast for a few hours can give you a 16 hour fast and most of that time you were asleep. Easy.

If you want to know a lot more about the benefits of fasting, the most complete source of information, and I mean THE most complete source, can be found on Dr. Jason Fung’s excellent blog.

He has an huge free 26 part blog series about fasting that is a wealth of information on this topic. There simply is not a better resource about this on the internet and here’s the link.

They call me Butter Bob, but . . .

There’s something more to my story than Butter.

You Can See My Before and After

You Can Watch My Videos

But, you don’t know my whole story until you understand I lost 145 lbs with both Butter AND Fasting.

Most diets force you to use “will power” to eat less, but this doesn’t work for long.

A better way is eating healthy fats, like Butter, which turn off the “out of control hunger urges” that you’ve struggled with all your life.

This gives you complete appetite control.

This appetite control gives you freedom without using “will power” and enables you to do what is called “intermittent fasting“.

No diet or exercise plan can DO for you what Short Term Fasting can do.

But until you actually learn all the things intermittent fasting can DO for you, it’s just my word and my story, it doesn’t relate to you.

They call me Butter Bob, but the truth is, I could just as easily be called Fasting Bob.

She didn’t ask what can she “eat” she asked what can she “have”. When fasting you are usually allowed liquids and I also wondered which liquids apart from water e.g. Bulletproof Coffee are allowed. She’s not the moron.

Just saw this comment. Moron conrack: if we ever meet, you won’t have t worry about fasting. In less than a minute I’ll have you in a state where you’ll need emergency help to have your mouth wired shut. Must be a sad world you live in to make such a rude comment to someone.

Conrack – Are you a Troll?
Rhetorical insults do not make you look clever They actually make you seem to be making reflective statements so when you call people morons, it may seem that you are protesting too much

The correct response would have been to tell the person to drink Water and discuss whether unsweetened tea or tisanes were allowed. A question about his/ her daily medication would also have been in order

I have a problem with medication aggravated T2D diabetes, that is to say a pancreas function that has been weakened by sulphonamide drugs such as Amaryl and Gliclazide
How would I proceed with the fast when my pancreas does not produce enough insulin and I have only managed to reduce daily doses to a third by using LCHF diet
Is it safe to forego the Insulin during the fast period?

at the risk of sounding like a “moron”- what about coffee and intermittent fasting? i have read that you can have bullet proof coffee in the morning. so, if i’m fasting from 7pm to 1pm, do you think the bulletproof coffee is ok?

Anything over 50 calories will break your fast, so BPC is definitely over 50 calories. If you just gotta have something to get you through to that first meal, maybe find a fat bomb recipe with a serving that is under 50 calories?

It’s not the calories, its the insulin response. People just use “50 calories” type reasoning because most people aren’t expected to eat/drink pure fat. Coffee with Grass-fed unsalted butter has zero effect on insulin as it’s pure fat (regardless of the amount of calories), therefore it’s ok.

It is not the caloric intake that stops ketosis, but the stimulation of glycolysis that limits ketone production.

Studies have shown that the effects of fasting and only eating fat are almost identical, so even though the butter does technically “break the fast”, you are still getting all of the fat burning benefits without the hunger.

Sorry, I understand eat normal day one. End with dinner. The next day, day two, don’t eat anything until dinner. Day three, eat breakfast lunch and dinner, day 4, don’t eat anything until dinner….not one meal a day….

It can be either or other patterns. For instance, you can fast one day, eat the next, or fast 2 days, and eat one day. or, fast all day every day until dinner, then eat that meal. There are many ways to intermittent fast.
What you want to do is find what works best for you.

I agree with Bob — IF and LCHF in tandem are the best way for me to lose weight.

My experience is that you can maintain the benefits of a fast even while consuming several coffees during the non-eating phase. I drink mine with full table cream (I’ll even use whipping cream, but that is rarely available). This allows me to eat only one meal every 24 hours. Wherever possible I try to make my meal low carb/high fat, avoiding processed foods. My social circumstances dictate that this meal must be dinner (with my young family), but others may be able to make different arrangements.

While Bob does not encourage this, I am also not averse to eating small amounts of straight fat (butter or coconut oil) a couple of times a day in lieu of regular meals. I find this helpful for appetite control while keeping insulin levels low.

After one week of fasting, doing it alternative days, and sticking to low carb high fat, I must say the results are abysmal. I’ve just felt hungry and even gained a pound. I had been on low carb for 4 months and dropped weight, eating less than 30 grams of carbs per day. Most days 15-20 grams. The past month, I haven’t lost anything. I thought I’d give this fasting a try and see if it would blast off into outerspace. Instead, I gained a pound and don’t see any decrease in the inches around the middle. Maybe the fasting doesn’t work for everyone. After one week, I suspect I’d see something. I had a goal in mind of doing it for the 3 weeks but now I might head back to regular low carb. On fast periods, I ate nothing. Just water. At dinner, I’ve eaten low carb high fat food. Dinner has usually been eggs in butter or olive oil, fatty meats like ribeye and chicken with skin on …maybe bacon and a little cheese. I’m sickened to see the scale go up and no inches lost.

Especially with your hunger, try eating daily in a 6-8 hr period instead. Eat 2 or even 3 times (a snack probably) but don’t eat again till 16-18 hrs later. If you’re hungry, you’re not burning fat. Its doing you no good to be hungry. I’m assuming you’ve passed the craving stage and are truly hungry.
Also, seeing as you have been months since wgt loss, and therefore fat burning, something’s wrong. So give it a few weeks more. Then switch back to lowcarb but higher protein maybe (assuming you are high fat right now) for a month. Then try the fasting again for a few weeks. Then switch back. You might be a person who needs to switch every so often so your body doesn’t think it’s starving.
Don’t Give Up, Art 🙂

Art are you eating vegetables. Vegies are really important, especially green veg. I was doing LCHF and mainly eating protein with very few veg. I had very slow weight loss (I have a lot to lose) when I added vegies at every meal e.g. bacon and eggs for breakfast with cherry tomatoes and mushrooms all cooked in butter. Green salad with lunch protein , and lots of steamed, stir fried or baked vegies smothered in butter or cheese sauce or other high fat sauce with protein. Careful of the protein quantity too, excess turns to glucose in the body which turns to fat.

Hi
Thank you for your article very interesting. It confirms i am on the right track as far as resolving insulin issues and reducing weight.
I have just completed a 5 day fast and the only items consumed was water (lots of it) and black tea. The hardest thing to deal with was the cold weather(winter here) but I wasn’r hungry at all. It was great to be free from the “Must eat because the clock says so”… Still fasting 16 hrs a day and one meal at night drink some homemade vege soup during 12:00pm and 8:00pm. It works so hang on in there……

I started LCHF but lost nothing in two months. I fell off the wagon. When I started again I also began IFing – two days a week I only eat breakfast – and now the weight is coming off. I thought it would be hard but knowing that I can eat the next day makes it easy to stick to and seeing results is a great motivator.

Great article, very beneficial.
Just noticed what seems to be an text error in one of the graphs:
In the paragraph that starts with “After just 11 hours, fatty acids”
The graph says “after eating” .. I think you meant after fasting.

Hi Guys…. this is a great blog…. hats off to you for this site. Im a diabetic for almost 15 years and my doctor put me on metformin 3 times a day… When I took metformin 3 times a day, I can barely get up and walk the next day.So I stopped taking them all together. Now im intermittant fasting, having nothing but nuts and very low carbs –eating every 16 hours and I feel as if someone is ” sticking needles in my hands and feet and I have tingling sensation on my toes and fingers ” is this supposed to happen I eat lots of cheese…. could eating cheese generates needle pain in my hands and feet??. Pardon my ignorance. Im new to this. Didn’t mean to upset anyone. The last time i checked my A1c was about 10.5, which was 2.5 years ago. After that I lost my insurance and couldn’t afford the lab blood tests due to limited income.
Any thoughts would be appreciated. !!!!

I’ve been doing intermittent fasting everyday and just eating in the 6 to 8 hour time. Ive lost 2 inches is this ok to do. I have alot of weight to loose I’ve never been a breakfast person and dont usually eat til evening anyway. So I thought this intermittent woe would be good for me. I do it everyday too is this ok. Really looking for answers.

I am 50 and post menopause. I am on hormones and vitaminD3 and
magnesium at night with progesterone…I also have been told I am prediabetic, I do have above range levels in the morning readings always.
I have lost 27 lbs for the most part and I do exercise…my fasting is 108-129 in the mornings…I have started the intermittent fasting, with doing almost everyday 12/13 hours…and a couple of 24 hours, once a week…
my daily fast are lowering but not my morning upon waking up..I don’t eat much..I do drink occasionally beer or bloody mary on the weekends.
I am confused about how to reduce more weight and still maintain my BG.
I do have my BG go down in the day in the range of 84-96, but when I eat it will rise up to 157, this may be like just a salad with ham and cheese…I am so confused..My A1C was 5.5 last time they checked and said I don’t have diabetes, but put me on Metformin that made me really sick…I was put on lots of meds for a short period of time and all my health went to crap..I got off all except for hormones and vitamins, and I do take klonopin when I cant seem to control the anxiety. This has made me crazy as my Mother had diabetes and died due to kidney failure…I am sorry to say, I am actually scared of meds…What do I need to get to help with diet and when to fast…how long does it take to reverse your insulin and do you have to do this for life.

Oh, I did forget to ask, do I fast for like from 7:00 pm until 7:00 pm
the next day, then eat breakfast, lunch and dinner the next day. Keep it with very low carbs..or just eat between a window of time the next day? I just need a start until I get Doctor Fungs book.

Becky it sounds like you’re blood sugars are well within normal limits.
No higher than 180 after eating is acceptable.
blood sugars are normally higher in the morning that’s what wakes you up out of your slumber.
5.5 a 1 c very non diabetic.

Even Dr. Jason Fong admits there are limitations on sustainable diets over a lifetime and it has to be individualized.
In actual clinical studies most people are unable to sustain over a long period of time alternate day fasting but everyone should be able to eliminate breakfast and do 2 meals per day and maybe fast 1 or 2 days per week. Even fasting 1 day a week and only 2 meals per day is highly effective and sustainable over a LIFETIME. But, Butter Bob is right in the short term fasting every other day is something “some” people can do short term which will increase the bodies insulin sensitivity as much as seven fold. Butter Bob knows what has worked. Eating fat does work. Fasting does work and it is or should now be accepted by the medical field.

Reducing the timing of no carb no sugar high fat meals alone to 2 meals a day, no breakfast, no snacks, will increase the bodies ability to burn fat as much as seven fold. Insulin becomes more efficient due to fasting and your body, re-set itself.

Studies show that scheduling only two meals per day retrains or resets your bodies ability to burn fat, but only if you eliminate snacks, eliminate sugar, eliminate carbohydrates. Eat fat like REAL whole fat cheese, eggs, coconut oil, (eggs cooked im coconut oil ir butter) real fat butter, and FAT meat, and salads with fat like olive oil, and even fresh ground peanuts without any sugar which means you make your own peanut butter without sugar.

In theory, if you could fast every other day then you would increase the bodies efficiency at burning fat seven times but in practice most people are unable to sustain that over a long period of time. But, everyone should be able to eliminate breakfast, eliminate snacking, and limit to 2 meals per day no carbs no sugar and high fat to eliminate cravings.

In his latest book “The Diabetes Code” (2018, Appx, p221-222), Dr Fung has two sample meal plans to follow. Both are alternate day fasting (ADF).
One is three LCHF meals each feasting day; and next day eat nothing. Repeat.
The other is Eat Breakfast & Lunch day 1; no dinner
Day 2 skip breakfast and lunch, eat dinner
Repeat.

Dr Fung and Megan Ramos are constantly modifying and adapting as more information comes to hand. These plan are based on their very latest research.

The regimen that has worked for me is eating a lchf meal at noon, then not eating again till the following day at the same time, Here I can have an occasional dinner when need be and still stay within 16 hours fasting or so. Getting in a routine like this has not been difficult, for me. The weight loss has been phenomenal, 25 lbs in less then two months. I can’t say enough about this diet, Again, just my experience. much appreciation to Bob and Dr. Fung.

Your lecture proves that Islam is a great religion. Because Muslims fast a whole month every year, and Mondays and Thursdays of every week. More than that they are also advised to fast the white days that’s 13. 14 and 15th of each month, on those days the moon has the greatest pull of objects on earth so it is better our bodies has the least water in them. Our fast is complete no food or drink.